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At least I didn’t at first when I tried it during beta and early release. I felt it was lacking in content, game types, maps, and substance. On top of all that I feel it cost too much for what is offered. A few well made cinematic’s don’t hide the fact that all the maps in the game are basically hallways designed to force high combat situations. You can call it the Call of Duty effect. Forced encounters with high combat interactions in short to medium bursts over a short match time. New/bad players don’t ever feel useless or bad thus making them have less chance of getting frustrated and quitting the game. Also allowing good players to still do well but still get caught here and there due to just bad luck and counter picking. This is in a nutshell what kept Call of Duty on top of the shooter market for so long while games like Battlefield and Halo have taken secondary niche markets.

I find the popularity of Overwatch to be surprising since gamers are constantly asking for more difficult games but the most popular games on the market are usually for much more casual audiences. Regardless of the philosophy of gaming, is Overwatch fun? As of writing this review and basing it on only the game itself I find it to be an amazingly fun toy. Yes, you have read right. If Battlefield 1 was tactical training with high-pressure BB guns and Halo 5 was paintball than Overwatch would be a bunch of kids in the park with nerf guns. Does that mean it’s not fun? Hell no. It’s a blast. I’m just saying don’t take it so seriously. I have friends on PC talking about team builds, strategy and going up and down in ranks but still doing poorly. On the other hand, I have friends in the top 500 who have prestiged multiple times telling me it’s not that big a deal.

Overwatch has become my “main game” now. When I want to play something seriously or just mess around for a bit, Overwatch is where I go. It plays to a lot of different play styles due to the multiple hero setups and the quick action packed matches. If I don’t feel like focusing and just want to hang out with friends I’ll play something like Mercy or Lucio, maybe Bastion and just sit in a corner and crack jokes. If I really feel like playing I’ll play Reinhardt, Tracer or Soldier. Regardless of how well I’m doing and how I’m feeling at the time, I feel I just like joking around and yelling on mic with friends.

Who you play with will make a big difference. I’m not talking about winning, I’m talking about enjoying. A big part of the reason I didn’t enjoy Overwatch at first is due to the friends I was playing with. They were very try hard and took a very casual game too seriously. They would go on about team composition and timing certain abilities but still consistently lost or had trouble moving up in rank. Having played far more complex and competitive shooters through the years I noticed our losses were more due to bad fundamental skills rather than game knowledge. A lack of communication, not knowing when to push off the advantage, not knowing when to back off the disadvantages and simple things like don’t just funnel in one at a time when their whole teams up. Even when it comes to team composition, just because a composition is strong in the meta doesn’t mean it’s always going to work or be used to its full potential based on who’s playing what. Play around the person, not the hero.

I felt the game was too casual for my taste to play alone and I was only ever getting frustrated playing with friends. I’m not saying I’m the next MLG champ at Overwatch but I know my fundamental with shooters. Regardless of how simple the game and what the meta might be the fundamentals are the most important thing in any shooting game. This is made even more clear when another group of my friends bought me Overwatch as a joke on PS4 for Christmas. All of them that didn’t have PS4s at this point got PS4s for Christmas and Overwatch was the game they decided on over Call of Duty, Battlefield and Titanfall simply because they knew I didn’t like it. A bunch of them already had Overwatch and have now prestiged multiple times. But I and the new PS4 owners went in fresh. They insisted that I would enjoy the game more with them. They were right.

Not only do I have a great time playing with them but I’ve met other friends through playing as well. On top of that, we’re winning more. Why is this? Because they have a strong understanding of the fundamentals of shooting games. We barely have to say when to push and when to back since they are aware of what’s going on. In the moment’s someone does say anything everyone reacts on reflex to what’s said and act accordingly. Sure we still lose our share of games but it’s pretty good for pissing in the wind with half your team drunk off the minds or eating while playing.

Now, this isn’t a PS4 vs Xbox One vs PC thing. This is a don’t take a fun toy too seriously thing. Overwatch is a blast but a lot of people need to accept it’s a very simple casual game at its foundation. Unless you really believe you will be the next MLG pro just have fun and enjoy the game. This kind of extends to all games actually. Overall I really like Overwatch now. I still don’t agree with a lot of what it offers and I do think it cost too much for what they are offering. But if that means we don’t have to pay for future DLC then I’ll live with it. As a game, it’s fun regardless of play style and drunkness. If you have been on the fence regardless of what platform you are on I recommend Overwatch. Even more so if you have chill friends to play with. I won’t be giving Overwatch a rating out of 5 as I would normally do since if I were to break the game down as I do with other games it would end up having a pretty low rating. I feel that would be a bit counter-productive to Overwatch’s overall philosophy. So instead I’ll give it 2 thumbs up and a glass of rum and coke.

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Battlerite is a MOBA/ARTS game similar to games like League of Legends and Dota 2 but is very much it’s own beast entirely. Unlike most MOBAs Battlerite has no lanes or minions. There’s no throne or nexus to capture or destroy. It’s a straight arena brawler. Your team vs the other team and last team standing wins. It takes place over 3 rounds and best out of 3 wins the match. The match ups are between either 2v2 or 3v3 and don’t take much longer than 10 mins to finish a 3 round match. You play as one of a handful but growing number of heroes per match with distinct plays styles, looks and synergies. Like every game that comes out now there are skins for your weapons, armor, mounts and all that you can earn from chests. The chests are completely random but some chests give you better chances but cost more. Stop me if you herd all this before. I honestly hate this system but it’s clearly here to stay so might as well get use to it. Oh and before we move on you can get icons and poses from these chests as well and all of these things are strictly cosmetic. So they say but we all know if you paint it red and put flames on it , it will go faster. So you be the judge.

For the most part the game seems to be balanced. There are sure some heroes you see more often that seem to do better than others. I think that has a lot to do with the newness of the game and people still figuring out how to play it. From what I’ve seen everything has some kind of counter and skill is a big component as well. The game doesn’t hold your hand and make you feel like your helping out and doing a lot when all your doing is shooting down a hallway over and over again. I’m looking at you Overwatch. If you suck the game makes it clear. I have been on the receiving end of these beat downs many times now on Battlerite and on a few occasions handed them out myself. The thing is I don’t feel regret or that I wasted my time when I lose. I feel I deserved it. I feel like I learned from it and I’ll do better next time. Maybe this is because the game is still new in general and new to me as well but I feel it has a lot to do with the games design and enjoyment. That being said when I win it’s all skill all day #gg #mlglyfe #protwitchstream #dothedew #doritosxpcode.

It will take some getting use to even for people who are use to playing games like Dota 2, it may look similar but it plays much faster. I would even say its very arcade like in that sense and the controls are different. Actually after me and my friend played Battlerite some other friends wanted to play Heros of the Storm and the controls felt alien. I would say Im more use to the MOBA style controls but playing Battlerite and then jumping back over felt like everything was flipped. It also felt very slow. Battlerite is a much more fast paced game with more skills to use than Dota style games. So when I got back on Heros of the Storm I felt like I was just sitting there waiting for stuff to get off cool down.

If you are going to play this I recommend playing it with friends. It’s really a completely different experience to play with some one else you know. I had this game for a while now and the first time I played it I played alone and didn’t really care for it. It was cool but I wasn’t able to reach the “wow” moment you get when you play a great game for the first time. It had all the trappings but it couldn’t hook me. That is until my friend got access to it during their free weekend and talked me into playing. That’s when the “wow” moment hit both of us and I saw how great the game is. If you don’t have friends I recommend you find some first otherwise skip it or look for a guild of some sort. The Dark Hearts Gang is my personal gaming guild that’s open to all. I’ll throw a link at the bottom of this article if you’re interested in joining.

The game costs about $20 give or take but I feel I see it on sale often. During the free weekend event my friend got me to play with him they discounted it down to about $15. Regardless of the price I feel it is worth getting if you are into PVP games of this style.

Overall I think this games a hit and can be a huge hit with the right recognition. It’s worth the price if you ask me and will only continue to grow and gain more content over time. It’s all PVP though so if that’s not your thing than this isn’t going to change your mind. But if PVP is your thing there isn’t really anything else like this on the market except the game Battlerite is based off of, Bloodline Champions. (Made by the same company actually if you were wondering why they seemed so similar.) If you have read my other reviews you will know I usually give the game a rating out of 5 around this point. I don’t feel right giving a rating to a game that’s still this early on development. So instead I’ll give it a strong recommendation. Battlerite is awesome and it just might be the best PVP I played this year.